The Houston Astros have spent the season living on the edge with their pitching, and now the bullpen that carried so much of the load looks spent at exactly the wrong time.
That strain was on full display in the Astros’ weekend series against the Atlanta Braves. Houston used Peter Lambert, Hayden Wesneski and Hunter Brown to cover the starts, and those three combined to allow just three runs over 15.2 innings.
It still wasn’t enough. The Astros lost all three games anyway, largely because the relief corps fell apart behind them.
Houston’s bullpen posted a 10.32 ERA in the series, giving up 13 runs, including five home runs, over 11.1 innings. Every game slipped away. At this stage, that kind of collapse feels less like a bad weekend and more like a warning sign with the season on the line.
The workload has been brutal all year. The Astros’ 630.2 innings from the bullpen are the fifth-most in baseball, and that number is even more striking because they have rarely turned to openers. With the rotation unable to regularly work six or seven innings, Joe Espada has been forced to keep reaching for relief arms night after night.
That has taken a toll on the group. Steven Okert, one of Houston’s better relievers, has been out since September 4 and is done for the year. Enyel De Los Santos had been more steady than shaky until recently, but after giving up six earned runs in his last three outings over four innings, he landed on the IL with right knee tendinitis and will not return.
AJ Blubaugh was supposed to get more high-leverage chances, but he looks worn down after leading MLB in innings out of the bullpen this season. He has given up runs in five of his last seven appearances, allowing nine earned runs in six innings during that stretch. His ERA has climbed from 3.02 to 3.70.
Bryan King has gone from breakout weapon to major concern. He entered play on July 10 with a 2.03 ERA and had looked like a dependable leverage arm since 2024.
Since then, though, the bottom has dropped out. Two trips to the minors haven’t fixed it.
He put up a 9.31 ERA in July, a 12.79 ERA in August and an 11.81 ERA in September, and his season ERA now sits at 5.40. He’s become a non-tender candidate as Houston looks for ways to clear him off the 40-man roster.
Bryan Abreu has also gone from problem to part of the problem. After a rough start to the season, he settled in during May, but lately the big blows have come back.
He has allowed game-changing home runs in two of his last four appearances, which led to a loss and a blown save. In his latest outing, he entered with the bases loaded and one out, struck out the first hitter he faced, then left a 96 MPH fastball over the middle for Ronald Acuna Jr., who drove it 411 feet for a grand slam that swung the game to Atlanta for good.
Tatsuya Imai is barely part of the picture at all. He has pitched only seven times since July 27, and in six of those outings he came in with the Astros already behind and worked the final two or three innings. He has allowed just four earned runs in 17 innings, but with 11 walks and 24 strikeouts on 8 hits, he has essentially been pushed to the margins and is not part of the bullpen rotation.
Josh Hader remains the one steady force. He has been perfect in 26 save chances, is 4-1 with an 0.83 ERA and a 0.65 WHIP, and has given up only four earned runs all season.
In 43.1 innings over 44 appearances, he has piled up a 55/11 strikeout-to-walk ratio. The problem is obvious: he can’t cover four innings every night.
The broader picture around the pitching staff hasn’t helped. The Astros have been battered by injuries for the third straight season, especially on the mound. They also made no real attempt to add pitching at the trade deadline for the second year in a row, and the late-season results are showing it.
Espada has had little choice but to lean hard on the bullpen because of injuries and ineffectiveness elsewhere. The offseason pitching moves made by former GM Dana Brown have mostly missed.
The one that worked, Lambert, was cut after Spring Training and later brought back on a minor league deal. Even so, he hasn’t won since July 11 and has lost five straight decisions.
Over that stretch, he has made 12 starts, and in only one of them did he not pitch well enough to give his team a chance to win.
The Astros’ pitching strength has been the bullpen. Right now, that strength is cracking. Whether it can hold together for one more week may decide whether Houston gets any more baseball after that.
In Other News...
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Jeff Bagwell has already singled out Schiavones power, on-base ability and defensive skills, and those are the kinds of traits that can make a catching prospect impossible to ignore. The strikeout rate is still part of the picture, but when a minor league catcher does something no one has done since 1981, the Astros have to think bigger about where he fits and how quickly he could matter at the major league level. [Read more 🡒]